2006/09/04
US struggles for new Somalia policy
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Anarchic Somalia has confounded U.S. foreign policy once again, leaving Washington struggling to find a coherent approach to a state whose internal turmoil threatens to destabilise the Horn of Africa.(...)
A covert counter-terrorism initiative in which the United States threw its support behind secular warlords fighting Islamists in Mogadishu backfired spectacularly in June. The U.S. involvement actually worked to strengthen the Islamists' hand and helped them conquer the capital, analysts say."
Para um enquadramento Somalia: A Case Study in Interventionism
"(...) Post-Barre, Somalia reverted back to what it has always been and will doubtless be as far as the eye can see: a patchwork collection of clan-based factions and sub-clan alliances, based on cultural and religious rather than political or state-based allegiances. In 1991, the north declared its independence, but "Somaliland," as it was deemed, was not recognized by any foreign government.
Instead, the UN – determined to impose the kind of centralism desired by Barre and his "scientific socialism" – went in to reestablish a central government, feed the people, and lead them to "democracy," Western-style. Initiated by Bush the Elder, and passed off to incoming President Bill Clinton, "Operation Restore Hope" was sold as a "humanitarian intervention."
As it turned out, however, the effects of this intervention – aside from the deaths of 18 American servicemen and the dragging of their bodies through the streets of Mogadishu – were not quite so humanitarian. As Brendan O'Neill points out in an excellent piece:
"Restore Hope was part of America's search for a sense of moral purpose after it had been robbed of its big, bad enemy, the Soviet Union. That is why American officials continually exaggerated the scale of the famine in Somalia, which they claimed to be launching a war against: because this was a staged intervention rather than a genuine attempt to lift Somalia out of poverty.
In truth, the worst of the famine was over before American forces arrived, and as some experts have pointed out, the interventions by the U.S., the UN, and numerous aid agencies increased poverty and hunger in Somalia rather than alleviating it. For example, the flooding of Somalia with aid effectively destroyed the country's agricultural industry."
And of course it was pure coincidence that, as Steve Kretzman pointed out in Multinational Monitor,
"Just before pro-U.S. President Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991, nearly two-thirds of the country's territory had been granted as oil concessions to Conoco, Amoco, Chevron, and Phillips. Conoco even lent its Mogadishu corporate compound to the U.S. embassy a few days before the Marines landed, with the first Bush administration's special envoy using it as his temporary headquarters."
During the "golden age" of imperialism, the Somalis were traded back and forth between the European powers, their resources divvied up and exploited. In the Cold War era, they were used as pawns by the two superpowers in a game of geopolitical chess, subsidized and egged on in their internal conflicts by foreign sponsors eager to cash in on the bloody consequences. Today, Somalia is once again a plaything in the hands of much larger forces, becoming the latest battleground in the war between the United States and what the administration and its neoconservative amen corner would have us believe is al-Qaeda.
The most recent U.S. intervention into a clan dispute – occasioned by the misperception that their guys had been attacked by al-Qaeda-affiliated "terrorists" – is surely the definitive demonstration of U.S. policymakers' incompetence and arrogance. This has led to U.S. support for the "warlords" – who were previously hunted by U.S. troops (...)"
A covert counter-terrorism initiative in which the United States threw its support behind secular warlords fighting Islamists in Mogadishu backfired spectacularly in June. The U.S. involvement actually worked to strengthen the Islamists' hand and helped them conquer the capital, analysts say."
Para um enquadramento Somalia: A Case Study in Interventionism
"(...) Post-Barre, Somalia reverted back to what it has always been and will doubtless be as far as the eye can see: a patchwork collection of clan-based factions and sub-clan alliances, based on cultural and religious rather than political or state-based allegiances. In 1991, the north declared its independence, but "Somaliland," as it was deemed, was not recognized by any foreign government.
Instead, the UN – determined to impose the kind of centralism desired by Barre and his "scientific socialism" – went in to reestablish a central government, feed the people, and lead them to "democracy," Western-style. Initiated by Bush the Elder, and passed off to incoming President Bill Clinton, "Operation Restore Hope" was sold as a "humanitarian intervention."
As it turned out, however, the effects of this intervention – aside from the deaths of 18 American servicemen and the dragging of their bodies through the streets of Mogadishu – were not quite so humanitarian. As Brendan O'Neill points out in an excellent piece:
"Restore Hope was part of America's search for a sense of moral purpose after it had been robbed of its big, bad enemy, the Soviet Union. That is why American officials continually exaggerated the scale of the famine in Somalia, which they claimed to be launching a war against: because this was a staged intervention rather than a genuine attempt to lift Somalia out of poverty.
In truth, the worst of the famine was over before American forces arrived, and as some experts have pointed out, the interventions by the U.S., the UN, and numerous aid agencies increased poverty and hunger in Somalia rather than alleviating it. For example, the flooding of Somalia with aid effectively destroyed the country's agricultural industry."
And of course it was pure coincidence that, as Steve Kretzman pointed out in Multinational Monitor,
"Just before pro-U.S. President Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991, nearly two-thirds of the country's territory had been granted as oil concessions to Conoco, Amoco, Chevron, and Phillips. Conoco even lent its Mogadishu corporate compound to the U.S. embassy a few days before the Marines landed, with the first Bush administration's special envoy using it as his temporary headquarters."
During the "golden age" of imperialism, the Somalis were traded back and forth between the European powers, their resources divvied up and exploited. In the Cold War era, they were used as pawns by the two superpowers in a game of geopolitical chess, subsidized and egged on in their internal conflicts by foreign sponsors eager to cash in on the bloody consequences. Today, Somalia is once again a plaything in the hands of much larger forces, becoming the latest battleground in the war between the United States and what the administration and its neoconservative amen corner would have us believe is al-Qaeda.
The most recent U.S. intervention into a clan dispute – occasioned by the misperception that their guys had been attacked by al-Qaeda-affiliated "terrorists" – is surely the definitive demonstration of U.S. policymakers' incompetence and arrogance. This has led to U.S. support for the "warlords" – who were previously hunted by U.S. troops (...)"
// posted by CN @ 1:34 PM 
Comments:
<< Home
CN já reparas-te que é sempre a mesma coisa?! Têm a "mania" de utilizar o termo 'anarquia' para referirem-se a "caos" ou a uma situação "caótica" - sempre que há confusão, lá vem o termo: anarquia, anárquico, etc.
Propaganda do pior! Nem são capazes de ler o conceito de anarquia, que é exactamente o oposto de caos... mas isso não interessa, interessa é denegrir o conceito empregando o termo de forma absolutamente abusiva!
Post a Comment
Propaganda do pior! Nem são capazes de ler o conceito de anarquia, que é exactamente o oposto de caos... mas isso não interessa, interessa é denegrir o conceito empregando o termo de forma absolutamente abusiva!
<< Home
